Lee Child: MatchUp

“Talk to the local cops,” Margot had said bitterly. “They must have a record of all the times we’ve called them because one of the girls has been harassed. You wouldn’t believe the disgusting things they’ve suggested to our models.”

Tony knew precisely the kind of thing those poor women would have been subjected to. “Was anyone ever arrested?”

“There were a couple of men, a few years ago now. Mostly they back off when the police caution them. They’ve generally got too much to lose. Wives, jobs, reputation.”

Carol’s phone rang and she took it on speaker.

“Stacey here, guv. I’ve thought I might take a quick look at the SCAS—”

“Serious Crime Analysis Section,” she muttered for Tony’s benefit.

“I know I’m rubbish with acronyms but I do know that one,” he said.

“If I could finish?” Stacey showed a sign of irritation.

“Go on,” Carol said. “SCAS?”

“There’s a report here from Sussex Police. They found a pair of feet on a rubbish tip in Brighton. It can’t be our victim’s feet, because they weren’t fresh.”

“But we don’t believe in coincidence at ReMIT,” Carol said. “Nice work, Stacey. Who’s the SIO?”

“DST Roy Grace.”

“I’ll call him as soon as I get back. When’s the autopsy?”

“They’ve bumped it up the list. They’re doing it this afternoon.”

Carol ended the call. “Weird. Maybe while I’m talking to Brighton and attending the autopsy you can check out the foot fetishists.”

Tony nodded. “I’ll take a look online. Most people with fantasies like these are pretty harmless. In my experience they tend not to be violent. They’re often socially inadequate, shy, poor at forming relationships. They want to kiss and touch, not possess. Elvis Presley was one. So was Thomas Hardy.”

Carol gave him a baffled look. “How do you know things like that?”

He shrugged. “Pub quizzes?”

Exasperated, she shook her head. “Go and find me an Elvis impersonator with homicidal tendencies, then.”

TONY WAS ACCUSTOMED TO SPENDING his days trying to empathize with the messy heads of murderers and rapists. But an afternoon on the trail of body part fetishists left him feeling more grimy than the average working day. There was something deeply unsettling about the transference of the sexual urge on to isolated bits of bodies. He found it dehumanizing and reductive. The more he read on forums and discussion groups, the clearer the picture became. Men, for it was almost invariably men, posturing to cover deep feelings of inadequacy. If you couldn’t handle a whole woman in her challenging complexity, how about her feet?

Or her hands?

Some even tried to rationalize it as a form of safe sex. Tony, who was used to a wide range of extraordinary rationalizations among serial offenders, thought that was right out there on the edge of daft, a technical term he used only when talking to Carol.

Whenever he came across someone who seemed to him to lean toward more salacious tendencies, he punted their details across to Stacey who performed her black arts to track down their location. Everybody who worked in the ReMIT team knew that Stacey had ways and means that went beyond the narrow confines of the law. But nobody cared because she knew how to cover her tracks and the intel she produced was worth more to them than being on their best behavior. Raiding people’s privacy for intel that could lead to evidence was a small transgression compared with murder and rape.

By the end of the afternoon, Stacey had run checks on half a dozen possibles, and they were both growing weary of their subjects’ apparent respectability outside the murky world of online fetishists. But as Tony browsed yet another chat room, Stacey abruptly called his name.

“I’m pinging something across to you.”

Tony glanced at the info sheet Stacey had sent, then sat up straight in his chair as he absorbed the key points.

Leyton Gray was a reflexologist based in Bradfield. A man whose profession necessitated the touching and manipulation of feet. A perfectly respectable calling, provided you weren’t also spending hours of your free time online looking at feet and talking to other people whose sexual urges were awakened by them.

But there was more.

One of his clients had complained to the police about his behavior. In her statement, Jane Blackshaw said he’d appeared to become sexually aroused while supposedly massaging her feet to treat a problem with irritable bowel syndrome. He’d left the room in the middle of her treatment and returned a few minutes later, flushed and out of breath. Stacey had tracked down a photograph of Jane Blackshaw, who was an unexceptional-looking woman in her early twenties.

Leyton Gray had been interviewed and had denied that anything inappropriate had taken place. He described Jane Blackshaw as an attention seeker and pointed out none of his other clients had ever complained either to his professional body or to the police. It was his word against hers. So the file was marked No Further Action.

But the clincher as far as Tony was concerned was the final paragraph in Stacey’s report. It had been snipped from the program of a complimentary therapy festival in Brighton.

“Returning by popular request, Leyton Gray will be talking about new developments in reflexology techniques. Leyton has been a regular speaker at our events and his sessions are always sold out. Book early to avoid disappointment.”

Leyton Gray, it appeared, was no stranger to the town where a pair of feet had turned up on the rubbish tip.

“ HAPPY FEET. REMEMBER THAT MOVIE?” Glenn Branson said breezily as he entered Roy Grace’s office shortly after 9 p.m., carrying two mugs of coffee.

More breezily than he or his boss felt.

Grace frowned. “No, I don’t.”

“It was brilliant. Animated. With penguins dancing.”

“Lovely,” Grace said, distractedly.

“Awesome cast. Robin Williams, Nicole Kidman, Hugh Jackman. Your kid would like it.”

“Noah’s eight months old.”

“Yeah, maybe wait a few years.” He paused, then pulled up a chair in front of Grace’s desk, turned it around and sat, resting his hands on the back. “I’ve had a thought.”

Grace opened his hands, expansively. “I’m all ears.”

“Forensic gait analysis. That specialist guy, Haydn Kelly, we’ve used on previous cases. Maybe we should bring him in. He knows more about feet than anyone on the planet, and he has a massive database. Worth a shot?”

“Good thinking, if he’s around.”

Kelly had developed software that, from a single footprint, could enable someone to be picked out in a crowd from his or her gait. Everyone walked in a unique way; every human being’s gait was as unique as their DNA.

“Call him and see if he’s in the country and available to come down. I know he’s abroad a lot.”

His phone rang.

“Roy Grace,” he answered.

“Detective Superintendent Grace? This is DCI Carol Jordan of the Northern Regional Major Incident Team.”

A strong, pleasant, if a tad formal, northern voice.

And the name rang a bell.

“Was it you involved with the Jennifer Maidment case?”

“I was, yes.”

“That’s where I know your name from. How can I help you?”

“Your inquiry team entered a pair of feet on SCAS. We have a female body up here missing her feet, and although we’ve had a man in for questioning, we didn’t have enough evidence to hold him. So any supporting info would be helpful.”